Commonly, the job market is represented by classified adds—in print or on the internet —onto which a job seeker is reacting or alternatively by Human Recourses recruiters which are placing candidates in certain positions. Recently, virtual job market places were introduced.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,873,964 B1 describes a method for recruiting personnel for a business entity including a plurality of distinct business units each having individual hiring requirements, wherein at least some of the distinct business units' hiring requirements compete for common applicants, the method including the steps of: entering information related to a plurality of hiring needs, each of the plurality of hiring needs being respectively associated with one of the plurality of distinct business units, and information related to a plurality of candidates into a database, respectively; automatically cross-referencing the information related to the plurality of hiring needs with the information related to the plurality of candidates to identify candidates selected the plurality of candidates who satisfy entered information indicative of hiring needs; and, determining which of the identified candidates should be offered a job associated with the hiring needs; wherein, when it is determined that one of the identified candidates should be offered more than one job as determined by the hiring needs, all jobs pertinent to the one of the associated candidates are offered substantially simultaneously to the one of the identified candidates.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,662,194 B1 describes an apparatus and method for providing recruitment information, including a memory device for storing information regarding at least one of a job opening, a position, an assignment, a contract, and a project, and information regarding a job search request, a processing device for processing information regarding the job search request upon a detection of an occurrence of a searching event, wherein the processing device utilizes information regarding the at least one of a job opening, a position, an assignment, a contract, and a project, stored in the memory device, and further wherein the processing device generates a message containing information regarding at least one of a job opening, a position, an assignment, a contract, and a project, wherein the message is responsive to the job search request, and a transmitter for transmitting the message to a communication device associated with an individual in real-time.
WO 01/82181 A2 describes a method and system generating referrals for job positions based upon virtual communities comprised of members relevant to the job positions. This disclosure includes three primary methodical tools. The first tool implements a job recruiting toolkit. The second tool implements a method of generating referrals based upon a virtual community of people who relate to the job description. The third tool implements an enterprise recruitment toolkit.
A major drawback of the existing systems is the lack of additional information regarding industries, career levels and functional areas. Also, in general no salary ranges, etc. are provided for certain jobs.
It is one object of the present invention to overcome the drawbacks of the prior art and to provide a virtual job market place superior to existing methods and technologies.
The method according to claim 1 and the system according to claim 6 of the present invention solve this object and provide a virtual job market place superior to existing methods and technologies. It addresses inefficiencies in the labour market created by inappropriate definition of the labour market and incomplete construction of existing systems.
The present invention involves the following features:                1. Creation of a complete marketplace: combination of labour demand, labour supply and a pricing mechanism (salary information on every job seeker and every job), establishing basic elements of a market place within one closed data system. Note: existing technologies on job markets exclude salary, which in turn creates a demand/supply match without pricing information. A market place without a pricing mechanism cannot create clearance with a period and suffers from imperfect information.        2. Unique structure of the labour market: Combining generally known concepts to a unique combination of dimensions creates a far more complex marketplace, yet easy to understand and more relevant for all participants.        